Question

by hilzoy

A lot of people got upset when Obama said "I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world." I wonder whether any of them will have similar qualms about John McCain saying -- on behalf of all Americans -- that "we are all Georgians" ...

Somehow, I think not.

***

UPDATE: I agree with Matt:

"On one level, it’s empty political sloganeering. But on another level it’s not empty — it’s downright irresponsible, and an example of the sort of irresponsible behavior that got us into this. But this stuff isn’t a game — Putin, Shakashvili, the Ossetes and the Abkhaz are all playing for keeps. We shouldn’t imply guarantees that we don’t intend to keep, which means the public statements of our officials have to be driven by realistic assessments of the situation and of American interests not by mawkish sentimentality."

Also: the next time someone calls Obama presumptuous, recall that he is not the candidate who claims to speak "on behalf of all Americans" without so much as asking us.

Comments

[ken]

Hilzoy, I know this is hard for you to understand, but-

McCain was talking about us, about the American people and how we identify with the Georgian people whose liberty is under threat.

Obama, on the other hand, was once again only talking about himself by pointing out how cool he is to be a 'citizen of the world'.

The clue is in the candidates choice of pronouns.

[rea]

"we are all Georgians"

What, we all bombarded South Ossetia?

[Adam]

But what about the other 49 states?

Incidentally, according to Wikipedia, they were recently "invaded by Commies" -- though I'm sure that'll be fixed soon. :)

[John Cole]

Did he show a purple thumb? If he did, then the Georgians are really screwed, if history is any indication of what will come next.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

Teflon John . . .

[ral]

The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming

[KCinDC]

It's okay to say we're Georgians. Georgians are brave freedom fighters. But you can't say we're citizens of the world, because the world includes places like Venezuela and France -- though I'm not sure how the evolution of views on France is coming now that they've got Sarkozy. Is Sarkozy a good guy because he's supposed to be pro-Bush, or is he a traitorous European fop for being involved in snatching our glorious World War III from us?

[KCinDC]

Ken, how do we know McCain wasn't using the royal "we"?

[Ugh]

I am seriously fired up for a McCain presidency. Good times will be had by all.

[Ara]

KCinDC: I'm not sure the royal "we" is consistent with "all" or even a plural predicate noun. I'm not sure whether the Queen would say "We are Georgians" or "We are a Georgian", but I doubt she would say "We are all Georgians".

[bedtimeforbonzo]

Provided he doesn't use the nukes.

[aimai]

I don't get the continued anger and confusion by the kens of the world. Obama was, in fact, not appearing as a candidate in Berlin. He came to berlin as an american citizen and a world citizen--a role no one can renounce though, of course, some people live up to it better than others--to speak at a non campaign event. What was he supposed to say? Actually, I really did find the "we are all georgians" statement grotesquely inappropriate from a mere candidate for president. I think both McCain and Obama should have pointedly dissociated themselves from the Bush administrations problems and said "we have only one president at a time setting international policy. He needs to get his ass in gear and deal with the mess he made. I'll tell you what I propose to do with what Bush can't break, or can't fix, after I'm elected if I'm elected." McCain doesn't speak for me, now or after the election and I'm darned sure most americans still are saying "georgia who?" rather than "ich bin ein georgerianer."

aimai

[Warren Terra]

I took it to mean he was referring to his campaign staff. Funny, I thought it was just Scheunemann, but it turns out it's the whole lot.

Doesn't matter in any case. A candidate who can get away with his campaign staff saying he doesn't speak for the campaign can say anything.

[Tony P.]

McCain is a presumptuous little runt, ain't he?

On a practical note: last night, to refresh my memory of the geography of the Caucasus, I went over to google maps for a look at the area. Funny thing: Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia were just blank outlines -- no details at all within their borders. What was up with that?

-- TP

[KCinDC]

Ara, tell it to Krauthammer. Would the queen refer to herself as "the ones we've been waiting for"?

[byrningman]

"we are all paid by the Georgians"

There, fixed that for you, Senator McCain.

[KCinDC]

How big a bonus is Scheunemann going to get for that? It's quite a lobbying coup to get your client so prominently endorsed by a presidential candidate.

[Adam]

Oh wow.

I had a comment eaten by the filter on the other thread, so while I was waiting for it I decided to do some more research. This is kind of ridiculous.

First important point is that NATO has an interoperability requirement mandating that all member countries have to be able to use the same weapons.

Second, related point is that NATO suppliers have a guaranteed captive market, but also that new NATO members are a boon for defense contractors.

Third point is that NATO has been looking exclusively at countries with legacy Soviet weapons and never at countries with current contracts with NATO members.

Fourth point is McCain. Know that Randy Scheunemann fellow who was apparently a lobbyist for Georgia and now works for McCain? Oh, you don't even know the half of it. He's connected to PNAC and Chalabi, but for present purposes this is the amazing bit:

Much of Scheunemann’s work, in both the public and private spheres, has been oriented toward Europe, promoting democratic programs and expanding NATO to former Soviet-bloc countries. A board member (along with McCain) of the International Republican Institute (IRI), a key institutional vehicle through which the National Endowment for Democracy carries out its work, Scheunemann has worked closely with Bruce Jackson, a fellow former PNAC director, on NATO expansion issues, serving as a board member of Jackson's U.S. Committee on NATO and as a registered lobbyist and/or consultant for Georgia, Latvia, Macedonia, and Romania [all recent or proposed NATO member nations].

Wait! It gets better!

Scheunemann has served as senior foreign policy and national security advisor to McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign since 2007. In May 2008 the New York Times reported that Scheunemann had been working as a lobbyist for foreign governments as a “registered foreign agent” at the same time he was advising McCain. “Over the past several years, Mr. Scheunemann met several times with Mr. McCain to discuss his clients’ interests. He introduced the senator to the foreign ministers of Albania [joining NATO now], Croatia [joining NATO now], and Macedonia as they tried to win admission to NATO [...] Mr. Scheunemann also accompanied Mr. McCain to Latvia in 2001 [before Latvia's NATO membership] and Georgia in 2006,”

Could it get better? Yes, it could!

According to the Lobbying Registration office of the U.S. House of Representatives and the watchdog group OpenSecrets.org, Scheunemann's lobbying firm, Scheunemann & Associates, has for several years represented the National Rifle Association. In 2005, the firm also represented the Caspian Alliance, a consortium of oil- and gas-producing nations from the Caspian region.

Now who's that? Oh, one of three Stephen Payne's firms that paid Scheunemann -- you may remember Payne as that guy who was caught on tape offering Cheney/Rice access to a Kazakh offical in exchange for a couple hundred thousand dollars. He has some interesting connections. The Caspian Alliance, of course is a subsidiary of Payne's company that calls itself the "'Sole U.S. Representative' for Kazakhstan’s State-Owned Oil & Gas Company, KMG."

But oh my, it does not stop there. As mentioned above, defense contracts are good money for Western arms manufacturers, and McCain's connections to said manufactures are not insignificant. Of particular interest to me are the connections to EADS, which as you may recall McCain took heat over because they donated to him after he helped them receive a tanker contract over Boeing.

Why is that immediately relevant? Because McCain already lost an advisor over EADS ties. And -- ta da! -- European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co turns out to be a minor NATO beneficiary, receiving (for example) a $4.8B contract for surveillance tech in 2004.

There's a lot here. It would be interesting to see how much Albania, Croatia, Georgia, et al., would have to pay to upgrade to NATO equipment if they were to gain entry. And it certainly adds a dimension to the issue I hadn't previously considered.

[Adam]

I just had a comment on Scheunemann get flagged by the filter. If someone could unstick it, it would be much appreciated -- I was cataloging some of the defense industry connections before I saw the direction this thread had taken.

It's... it's kind of ridiculous. I mean, really really ridiculous. Scheunemann's schtick isn't Georgia, it's NATO, and the connections run really really deep.

[Adam]

OK, I ran out of patience with the filter so I just posted it all here.

[cleek]

i am not a Georgian, thank you very much.

[stefan]

National Review thinks this is all good for McCain:

"Georgians in Tbilisi 'Roar' In Response to McCain's Words"

Contrast that with the Rep. take on cheering crowds in Berlin.

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWQ2NzA2YzdjMjlkM2FjNzkxNGJhYjFiYzJiNjYwMTQ=

[Mike Schilling]

KCinDC: I'm not sure the royal "we" is consistent with "all" or even a plural predicate noun. I'm not sure whether the Queen would say "We are Georgians" or "We are a Georgian", but I doubt she would say "We are all Georgians".

How about we-all are Georgians?

[Mike Schilling]

KCinDC: I'm not sure the royal "we" is consistent with "all" or even a plural predicate noun. I'm not sure whether the Queen would say "We are Georgians" or "We are a Georgian", but I doubt she would say "We are all Georgians".

How about we-all are Georgians?

[Adam]

Interesting that so many of these guys (NB: wow, now that is a resume) that have worked on NATO expansion also worked on the Iraq "liberation" projects.

[tomj]

I think McCain and his Georgia should get a room.

If he thinks he can give me dual citizenship against my will when he is running for office, what happens if he wins.

[Davis X. Machina]

Teflon John . . .

Uh-uh.

Lexan™ John.

Completely transparent, yet bulletproof.

[Nell]

Adam's post on McCain's fp guy Randy Scheuneman and the commercial agenda in NATO expansion and much else is excellent.

He linked to it in a comment I now can't find on one of these Georgia-Russia threads, but I wanted to encourage ObWi readers who might have missed it to take a look.

[Nell]

McCain was talking about us, about the American people and how we identify with the Georgian people whose liberty is under threat.

Speak for yourself and your simple-minded right-wing friends, ken. I don't identify with the Georgian people except to this extent: sucks to elect an overconfident jerk with a short fuse to run your country, eh?

[liberal japonicus]

I second Nell on Adam's post, which is also his comment at 7:09. Though Adam has his own blog, if he (or anyone else) gets frustrated with the link limit in the comments, I have an extra set of keys to TiO.

[Adam]

Thanks LJ and Nell -- the blog post is actually two different OW comments from different threads -- they both got eaten by the filter so I integrated them into one post and put them on my blog before they were released. Like I said, I am impatient. :)

[liberal japonicus]

Thanks for pointing that out, I just saw the beginning and assumed they were the same.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

If he thinks he can give me dual citizenship against my will when he is running for office, what happens if he wins.

You keep your d*mn mouth shut or you get renditioned, probably to a reliable American ally who knows how to show gratitude for our military support by running secret prisons.

/joke

OK, now for the serious part.

As for me, I have nothing against the people of Georgia. I hope and pray that no more bloodshed occurs in Georgia, Ossetia or Abkhazia. But that is a very different sentiment from the shoulder to shoulder solidarity implied by John McCain which carries the strong connotation of American backing for Georgia in continued confrontation with Russia.

This is a terribly misleading message to be sending to the people of Georgia right now, because it is a message we cannot back up with action, and which if misinterpreted as such by them will make things worse.

We do not currently have a military adequate to carry on the missions we are already engaged in and also to simultaneously oppose Russian interests in the Caucasuses, in anything other than a pro-forma manner. Any attempt to pretend otherwise will only serve to get more innocent people killed or maimed.

For John McCain to pretend otherwise is dangerous, irresponsible, and insofar as he is informed as to the current state of our Army, deliberately deceitful. If he continues* to make statements like this he is a shameful liar and a dangerous demagogue. This campaign is a disgrace.

*I reserve judgement pending repetition because I've seen a lot of candidates say dumb things over the years, under the pressure of a campaign and the physical toll it takes. I wait to see what he has to say on this subject after a pause for reflection, charitably assuming that this might occur.

[Adam]

Ha! Got it!

1. Bruce Jackson and Randy Scheunemann both worked for the Project for Transitional Democracies, the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO, and other pro-NATO-expansion organizations. (That's also another connection to Payne and Rice -- through Stephen Hadley, who also worked on NATO with them.)

2. Jackson was a former VP for Lockheed Martin, and Scheunemann and McCain's top advisor Charlie Black both lobbied for Lockheed (and both Jackson and Scheunemann for EADS -- actually a lot of McCain advisors lobbied for LM and EADS).

Hard to say how much of that is just GOP incest, but Lockheed and EADS have more McCain lobbyists than any of the other major defense contractors, they both make money hand-over-fist from NATO, and it was the "you'll be accepted" sidechannel to Georgia after the NATO Bucharest conference this year that started the whole firestorm with Russia in the first place.

I think that's the connection. This is why McCain's backing Georgia: all the neocons behind AEI and PNAC are also behind NATO expansion, but Jackson, Black, Payne, and Scheunemann are out of place because they're not ideologues -- they're defense contractor guys -- specifically, Lockheed guys. They're all pushing NATO membership for Georgia, Albania, Croatia, etc., and they've all been pushing against Russia everywhere they could for years.

Incidentally, it's the same guys who scuttled the ABM Treaty (the other major issue of contention between the US and Russia -- and basing in Czech Repub. and Poland is related to NATO, of course), and got the resulting BMD-related contracts (Northrop Grumman and Lockheed). Not uncoincidentally, McCain is a very strong supporter of NMD and Obama isn't: "John McCain is a strong supporter of missile defense. In October 2007, McCain said: 'And the first thing I would do is make sure that we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and I don't care what his [Putin's] objections are to it.'" (Wikipedia)

Scary.

[byrningman]

Jackson, Black, Payne, and Scheunemann are out of place because they're not ideologues -- they're defense contractor guys -- specifically, Lockheed guys. They're all pushing NATO membership for Georgia, Albania, Croatia, etc., and they've all been pushing against Russia everywhere they could for years.

You're not suggesting that Russia is the USA's only significant competition in the global arms business are you, and that these Eastern European countries would be locked into decades of expensive hardware upgrades if they had to make their militaries compatible with "NATO standards"?

Gosh, it's almost as if you'd by cynical enough to insinuate that most of the taxpayer's money that went into the Georgian military in the past few years ended up back in private American corporations' hands.

[byrningman]

National Review thinks this is all good for McCain:

"Georgians in Tbilisi 'Roar' In Response to McCain's Words"

Contrast that with the Rep. take on cheering crowds in Berlin.

It's a pity there's no electoral votes in Georgia. Or maybe not, because Saakashvili's political competition tends not to get a fair chance.

[Adam]

Ah, that is the link on arms exports I've been looking for all day. Thanks.

In exchange, more on the NATO expansion lobby. (I may have posted this above but it deserves to be highlighted.)

[Adam]

Also, 'Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels':

This was months before Secretary of State Colin Powell would go to the United Nations to make the administration's case for the invasion of Iraq, touting the subsequently discredited evidence of weapons of mass destruction. But according to Jackson, Hadley told him that "they were going to war and were struggling with a rationale" to justify it. Jackson, recalling the meeting, reports that Hadley said they were "still working out" a cause, too, but asked that he, Jackson, "set up something like the Committee on NATO" to come up with a rationale. [...]

When it came to organizing the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Jackson, by his own admission, "knew nothing about Iraq." So while he agreed to serve as its chairman, he turned day-to-day operations over to Republican operative Randy Scheunemann, who took the position of executive director. Scheunemann was a member of the board of directors of PNAC. Scheunemann also served as treasurer of Jackson's Project on Transitional Democracies, and had been a consultant on Iraq to Donald Rumsfeld. He had also been a staffer for Mississippi Senator Trent Lott when Lott was the senate majority leader -- Scheunemann had in fact authored the Iraq Liberation Act. The act authorized the $97 million in Pentagon aid that would fund the Iraq National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi, who subsequently got close to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, explaining to her where Saddam Hussein's WMDs were supposedly located.

OK, I need to step away now. This is making me a bit queasy.

[Matt Austern]

I don't think McCain was being presumptuous or acting like an insane warmonger. Probably he was just confused. Maybe what he was trying to say was "We are all Gorgons," because he thought there were snakes in his hair.

[KCinDC]

No, it's a transcription error. McCain was embracing his role as the representative of Bush's third term, saying "We are all Georges."

[Gary Farber]

I thought McCain was being an Anglophile, and saying "we are all Geordies.

[KCinDC]

Anglophile? Why dismiss the idea that he's a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gary? Agist!

[byrningman]

Sorry, I already posted this is the other thread by accident:

I've been saying for a while now that the press has been giving an exaggerated version of Russian operations in Georgia, but it's really beginning to get absurd now: http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/28880/video

CNN showing footing of Tskhinvali, and claiming that it's the destruction the Russians have wrought in Gori.

This is legit, because I've seen some of those images as still images from Tskhinvali already over the past few days, the blown-up tank etc.

I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but if it's so difficult to find any authentic footage of destruction inside Georgia, then just maybe the extent of Soviet military operations has been hugely over-exaggerated. And, obviously, if the footage of Tskhinvali is supposed to shock us, then just maybe the plucky democratic Georgians don't have such clean hands in all this after all?

[bc]

Trying to catch up having been out of the loop for a few days. Have to say it seems that the discussion of Georgia is really lacking. I'm not ready (yet) to swallow the "Georgia is the aggressor" Putin line. The War Nerd and quibbles over a statement of solidarity with a pro-western democracy seem out of touch with the real questions.

Any vets or current military out there have any thoughts on this? Am I crazy in thinking that the only way Russia could have responded so quickly and with so much force and coordination is if it had planned this all along? And during the Olympics?

Sure, most of what I know about Russia I learned in my Eastern European Studies class in 1985 and a trip there in 1990. Cold War stuff. I wrote a paper on how the emancipation of the serfs lead to the revolution. Not all that applicable except along the way I learned about the Mongol invasion, how the Renaissance bypassed the Russians, and that the Russians think differently in so many ways.

Gut says Russians provoked this intentionally and out smarted the Georgians. Georgians took the bait. And now Russia gets to take out its frustration on the U.S.'s influence in its back yard and make the Georgians look silly at the same time. Smart move by the former KGB.

I've read several places about stepped up attacks by Russian-backed rebels in the days before Georgia moved but without cites. I read byrningman's post and wonder who's playing whom. I'm willing to consider the "dumb aggressive Georgian" line of thinking that predominates here, but it doesn't make all that much sense.

[byrningman]

Well, even if the Russians did 'trick' the Georgians into attack South Ossetia, isn't that a bit like saying the rape victim led on her attacker? You can bring a horse to water etc...

It's clear that the Russia's had a plan in place to secure the disputed enclaves, but why wouldn't they? Saakashvili has been saying publicly as far back as November-December last year that he would retake the enclaves within a year. Tensions have been mounting for months, tit-for-tat stuff.

And the one thing that no one disputes but no one in the mainstream ever mentions is the fact that the residents of these enclaves overwhelmingly do not want to be part of Georgia, do not speak Georgian, and gobbled up Russian passports with glee when they were offered. So whatever the relative merits of either Georgia or Russia's grand designs yadda yadda, Russia's position at least accords with the wishes of the civilian populations in question, even if only accidentally.

[bc]

Well, even if the Russians did 'trick' the Georgians into attack South Ossetia, isn't that a bit like saying the rape victim led on her attacker? You can bring a horse to water etc...

Yes, but who is raping whom?

As for the passport stuff, there no way it "accidentally" accords with Russia's position. Russia has for a long time staged a campaign to disrupt Georgia's territorial sovereignty.

[bc]

Well, even if the Russians did 'trick' the Georgians into attack South Ossetia, isn't that a bit like saying the rape victim led on her attacker? You can bring a horse to water etc...

Yes, but who is raping whom?

As for the passport stuff, there no way it "accidentally" accords with Russia's position. Russia has for a long time staged a campaign to disrupt Georgia's territorial sovereignty.

[cleek]

We are all Georges.

no no. he was saying that "We are all gorgeous! And fabulous!"

[Jay C]

@ byrningman:
"...then just maybe the plucky democratic Georgians don't have such clean hands in all this after all?"

Well, to judge by the commentary in the blogosphere (not always a great idea, I know!) - that viewpoint is already a minority one. A seemingly vast swathe of the Right has seized, with the desperation of the drowning, on the Russo-Georgian conflict as validation of every bellicose, crusading, warmongering sentiment they can muster up - complete with fulminating disdain for ["The Left"/Democrats/Barack Obama -insert bogeyman here] - who, as always, get the "blame" for any untoward developments. Go read, frex, some of the comments Greg Djerejian got on his Georgia posts: and those comments (robo-trolls aside) aren't even particularly bad compared to some I've seen around.

No: the fundamental Russophobia (not entirely unjustified, mind you) of the US media, and the lobbying efforts of a whole wing of what passes for an intellectual Establishment these days, will see to it that the Brave-democrats-battling-the-Evil-Empire line gets to be become the Conventional Wisdom. If on no other ground than "If they were attacked by the Russians, they can't be all bad". And needless to say, any contrary opinion will be savaged - visciously - as (in the mildest attacks) "Russian propaganda:.

Of course, this tack will also serve to cloak, in moral high-dudgeon, yet another epic failure of the Bush Administration's foreign policy: but, to the extremists, this will merely confirm their belief that even more belligerence and warmongering is what's needed. And never mind such nitpicking niceties as whether or not it was/is wise policy for the US to involve itself on one side or another of ethnic/territorial disputes in the Caucasus, of all places. Not when there is political hay to be made by waving (somebody else's) bloody shirt!

[hilzoy]

bc: Other people may differ, but I think I've been pretty clear that I think (a) that Russia has been trying to provoke Georgia for a while; (b) that Georgia was unbelievably stupid to grant their wish, and (c) that Russia's response was way disproportionate (which means: wrong.)

I don't think there are good guys in this episode.

[cleek]

A seemingly vast swathe of the Right has seized, with the desperation of the drowning, on the Russo-Georgian conflict as validation of every bellicose, crusading, warmongering sentiment they can muster up -

well, of course. the country is full of people who strive desperately to find themselves in the middle of a titanic, epic, global struggle between pure Good and pure Evil; all they need is someone to wear the Hitler costume and they're ready to start in with the Churchill-by-way-of-Kipling speeches.

all they want is a little undeniable existential threat to reassure themselves that they really are the Good Guys - is that so wrong ?

[Brett Bellmore]

"the country is full of people who strive desperately to find themselves in the middle of a titanic, epic, global struggle between pure Good and pure Evil;"

The country is full of people who strive to desperately find themselves NOT in the middle of a titanic global struggle between all too human sorta good, and reasonably close to pure evil. 'Cause, you know, if they can pretend successfully enough, they can put off the fighting until the next generation has to do it, from a worse position.

[cleek]

someday, Brett, someone will ask you what you did during the Titanic Global Struggle Between yadayadayada, and you can tell them you blogged about it.

We shall fight them from our cubicles!
We shall fight them from our bonus rooms!
We shall fight them from the safety of our blog comment sections!
We shall never surrender!

what-evah.

[liberal japonicus]

'Cause, you know, if they can pretend successfully enough, they can put off the fighting until the next generation has to do it, from a worse position.

This is an interesting theory that would predict why wars have gotten so much worse over the course of human history, but I think that wars have pretty much been the same and it is just that the technological means for carrying them out (along with the ability to administer all those peasants who might have just ignored changes of one clique of corrupt rulers for another) has improved. In fact, it has improved so much that the people on the receiving end of this technological prowess don't want to stand still for it, and resort to asymmetrical warfare. Thus, the whole notion of kicking the can down the street until the next generation cleans up the mess seems to be more like a recipe for a continuing mess.

[Ms Sparky]

Great insights. Great blog.

http://mssparky.com/

[OCSteve]

Am I crazy in thinking that the only way Russia could have responded so quickly and with so much force and coordination is if it had planned this all along?

Not at all IMO. I’m not an expert on armor movements, but IMO those tanks and artillery units were staged and ready to roll. And a lot more of them than they would have needed just to repulse an attack on South Ossetia.

Also, if you look at the timeline for the parallel cyber attack, there was what looks like a test run back in July, then the full blown attack began on Thursday, before the invasion began.

Doesn’t change the fact that Georgia offered up the provocation Russia was waiting for…

[hilzoy]

OCSteve: I've been pretty hesitant on this point, mostly because it makes sense to me that Russia would be more or less permanently ready for trouble in S. Ossetia, given its history, and so the fact that they seem to have been very well prepared does not (to me) necessarily mean that they thought something was going to happen there at this particular time.

I don't really know enough about stuff like armor, though.

[freelunch]

The Russians would have a lot of troops in the area, not only for Ossetia, but also because Chechnya, which has sent many refugees to Georgia in the past, hasn't exactly become joyous singers of praise to Putin.

McCain really needs to consider whether he should be shooting off his mouth in support of a nationalist with indifferent interest in a functioning democracy. Saakashvili appears to be far more like Putin than Bush or McCain seem willing to acknowledge.

I don't know if either the Balkans or the Caucuses are inherently unstable, but unthinking commitment to sovereign boundaries is as silly as unthinking support of every little separatist movement. There is something to be said for cultural hegemony.

[tomeck]

McCain thinks we're all Georgians because they made the same mistake we made in Vietnam (and Iraq?): "Don't start a war you can't finish."

[cleek]

Saakashvili to McCain: ok, any time now!

“Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, ‘We are all Georgians now,’” Saakashvili said on CNN’s American Morning. “Well, very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it’s time to pass from this. From words to deeds.”

[freelunch]

This Wikipedia Map can be helpful in finding the players.

[Nathan Williams]

Regarding Google Maps: they basically didn't ever have good data for Georgia, and so hadn't set it up. More information here.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

The country is full of people who strive to desperately find themselves NOT in the middle of a titanic global struggle between all too human sorta good, and reasonably close to pure evil. 'Cause, you know, if they can pretend successfully enough, they can put off the fighting until the next generation has to do it, from a worse position.

This is the same thing the Russophobes in Great Britain spent almost the entire 19th Cen. (and the 1st decade of the 20th) saying, sandwiched of course between military alliances with the Tsar to deal with first Napoleon and later Kaiser Wilhelm II.

How exactly is the tension between us and Putin's Russia that different? From where I stand this looks an awful lot like a replay of the Great Game. We should be sending in the Vixen any time now.

[Ben Alpers]

The country is full of people who strive to desperately find themselves NOT in the middle of a titanic global struggle between all too human sorta good, and reasonably close to pure evil. 'Cause, you know, if they can pretend successfully enough, they can put off the fighting until the next generation has to do it, from a worse position.

And from there you're only a chip shot away from the Green Lantern theory of Geopolitics.

[tgirsch]

Apropos of absolutely nothing, it seems to me that hilzoy needs one of these...

[Tony P.]

Thank you, Nathan Williams, for the google link.

Bret Bellmore, wars are a lot like taxes: the longer you can put them off, the better off you are. Or maybe the worse off you are. Argue either side you want, but be consistent about it.

BTW, Matt Yglesias has a post up on the subject of Tom Friedman's postulate that nations which both have McDonald's in them don't fight wars against each other. Yglesias shows a picture of the McDonald's in Tbilisi. I mention this because there was another postulate being floated by Bushies a few years ago: democracies don't go to war with each other. Another beautiful theory brought down by a nasty, ugly little fact.

-- TP

[Stephen Stralka]

When I saw the phrase "mawkish sentimentality" in the Yglesias quote, I thought at first it said "hawkish sentimentality." Which for McCain actually probably makes more sense.

[Nell]

@OCSteve and hilzoy: re preparations for large-scale Russian response...

Don't want to harp on it too many times, but it seems to be being overlooked in media and blog discussions: The Russians organized military exercises near the border with S. Ossetia as a response to the three-week U.S. joint training near Tbilisi with the Georgian, Ukraine, and Azerbaijani military that ended two days before the Georgian offensive.

This allowed them to assemble the necessary armor for a massive response. The linked story ends:

Georgia claims a string of recent explosions and border skirmishes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are part of a Russian plan to annex the regions, while Russia claims Georgia is gearing up for a [b]id to take control of the regions by force.

Both appear to have been true. It would have been an excellent reason to scale back the U.S. participation in the exercises -- a needed de-escalation and signal to Georgia that they shouldn't take the opportunity to roll on S. Ossetia.

[J. Michael Neal]

OCSteve: I've been pretty hesitant on this point, mostly because it makes sense to me that Russia would be more or less permanently ready for trouble in S. Ossetia, given its history, and so the fact that they seem to have been very well prepared does not (to me) necessarily mean that they thought something was going to happen there at this particular time.

You can have troops in the area, but that doesn't mean that they are ready to roll. There are logistical questions, as well as the matter of making sure that the troops involved know what they are supposed to do. You can't deliver a response as large, coordinated, and effective as what Russia put in motion unless you are ready for doing exactly that, at pretty much the time when you do it. If not, you get confusion in the execution, and there doesn't seem to have been any on the part of the Russians.

I think that it is extremely unlikely that they didn't have a very good idea of exactly what was going to happen. I don't think that this necessarily implies any deep penetration of the Georgian government. Aerial reconnaissance, or, if the Georgians were careless, signals intelligence, could very well have clued them that something was up, and they got ready for it. Some of their actions over the past few months certainly look like efforts to poke Georgia hard enough to get an overreaction.

[byrningman]

The whole criticism of Russia being ready for this war is probably the first time I've ever seen the US public outraged at a country's military preparedness and timely response.

At the end of the day, the Georgians started the war. The fact that the Russian commanders had a better game plan than their Georgian counterparts doesn't indicate anything about their respective "evilness", it simply indicates that the Russian were smarter and better organised.

You really to keep in mind that much of the outrage about Russia's action is designed to conceal the fact that one of the major poster-childs (children?) for American military tutelage and patronage just got humiliated.

Plus, after days of telling us that Teh Soviet Eevil was conquering Georgia, the fact remains that Russian operations were always limited to the contested regions, give or take about 20 miles.

As an aside, I remain skeptical about the 'cyberwar' stuff. As a country where chess is a spectator sport, Russia happens to contain an inordinate amount of the world's hackers, spammers etc. These people could easily have assaulted Georgian sites on their own initiative. And the 'denial-of-service' attacks? Well, given that Georgian web sites certainly don't have Google-style data farms of redundant servers, I'm not sure why web site going down indicates 'cyber war' rather than just millions of curious people around the world suddenly trying to connect with servers not designed to carry the load, which are also plugged into a lousy electrical infrastructure at a time of war, causing power surges and outages.

sorry, rant over.